I have several cookbooks that are full of recipes that use condensed canned soups. One book is from the late 1960s and the first thing I noticed is how many more soup flavours there used to be, 40 are listed, compared to the 20 or so that can be found in my local grocery store. Some of the intriguing flavours listed in the book are; oxtail, chicken gumbo, chili beef, hotdog bean, noodles and ground beef, and oyster stew.
The book opens by suggesting that cooking with soup is convenient and using
soup in cooking cuts your workload. It offers suggestions on making sauces, casseroles, stews and meat dishes. They also show pairings, mixing two cans of soup to make a new soup flavour such as chicken and rice with cream of mushroom. There are a few menus that include soup as a nutritious part of a good breakfast. They also show routinely serving soup as an appetizer. They suggest adding homemade croutons, pickles, almonds, onions, popcorn or pretzels to the top of soups just before serving. Whole party menus for birthdays, teen hangouts and holidays all based around soups are given .
Here are some noteworthy recipes:
It is important to remember that “exotic dishes” like pasta in tomato sauce were new to many homes mid-century. Garlic or curry were exciting. I have read that soldiers coming home from second world war brought home a taste for Italian food or other dishes from where they had been stationed. Housewives were trying to recreate these flavours. Do you think this dish is worth a try? I’m not sure how satisfying the sauce would be since we are so used to more authentic chunky tomato sauce these days.
When I was young my mother made liver and onions with bacon fairly regularly. We were told it was important for the iron content for growing children. Liver was not our favourite but it was palatable covered in bacon grease. I don’t know how I feel about liver anymore.
Desserts made with soup sound like they would be gross but tomato soup cake from an earlier post is actually delicious. You might want to try this one too.
Talking about soup has made me hungry. Which recipe will you try?